Featured Image Credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / Contributor via Getty
Apple's latest announcement is arguably one of its biggest in recent years, as it ends serious speculation and is likely to provide a solution to one of the company's most frustrating issues.
Like many of the world's biggest tech companies, Apple has been going all in on artificial intelligence over the past few years, to the point where it even created its own proprietary model known as 'Apple Intelligence'.
Right now it's relatively limited in what it can offer iPhone users, as you can take advantage of basic tools like writing assists, planning tools, and even live translation with certain AirPods models, but the biggest black mark on the software is its Siri implementation — or lack thereof.
Apple understandably made its longtime assistant Siri the focal point of its AI features even since it launched, promising a sophisticated tool that would match up with the industry's biggest and best competitors and be everything you need to accompany your life.
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However, the implementation has frankly been disastrous, as not only have the features been delayed on numerous occasions, it seemed as if the possibility of them ever releasing became more improbably with each new update.
One bombshell announcement later though and things are finally back on track – albeit in a package that both Apple and iPhone users likely weren't anticipating until recently – as a new partnership with Google has been revealed.
According to a joint statement from the two tech giants, "Apple and Google have entered into a multi-year collaboration under which the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be based on Google's Gemini models and cloud technology.
"These models will help power future Apple Intelligence features, including a more personalized Siri coming this year."
Effectively, Apple finally conceded that it was incapable of providing what it had promised when it came to AI, and has instead teamed up with Google's industry-leading software to achieve that instead.
This is good news for all Apple users that have been waiting for the features that seemed like they'd never come, and while it's not exactly what the company will have wanted for its AI future, it's the thing that'll finally get it off the ground.
One person that's not happy about this turn of events though is Elon Musk, who has expressed his distaste towards the new partnership in a fiery post on social media — perhaps because this leaves his own AI model Grok with another major rival.
Replying to the statement from Google on X, Musk argued: "This seems like an unreasonable concentration of power for Google, given that the [sic] also have Android and Chrome."
It's certainly a valid concern to express – especially as Apple previously partnered up with Google to make Chrome the default search engine on Safari – but it's hard not to see a tinge of jealousy within his reservations.
Musk has previously been outspoken about partnerships forged between Apple and ChatGPT, especially with how it relates to the latter's placement in the App Store charts relative to X and Grok, but given the countless other instances of consolidation throughout Trump's second term so far, it's unlikely that anything will prevent this from going ahead.
People on social media have pointed out the hypocrisy in Musk's comments too, with one Reddit user noting the hilariousness of "the world's wealthiest person complaining about an unreasonable concentration of power."
Another argued that Musk is "literally the last person on Earth who should be whining about an unreasonable concentration of power," with a third joking that "Mechahitler couldn't make the cut so the welfare baby is trying to work the antitrust angle. Shocking."
